Olympic shame but no surprise!

[MichaelMcGuire]

In the preceding days before the relay, several Cornish campaigners were visited at their homes by the Devon police in Cornwall and warned off any protests should they be thinking of having them. In scenes reminiscent of Speilberg’s ‘Minority Report’, it now seems D&C Police have a ‘Future Crimes/Not Actually a Crime’ unit operating in this ‘democracy’!
Sgt Tom Cruise said, “We will show those pesky ‘Oo-Arrs’ a thing or two!”.

With the Olympics being a sporting event (and not a thinly veiled corporate/commercial juggernaut), lots of people in Cornwall were bewildered that Julie Kitchen – the Cornish woman ranked no.1 in the world for ladies Muaythai boxing and also a 14x world champion was overlooked to carry the torch. They were even more bewildered when a lot of the bearers didn’t even come from or live in Cornwall!

Next is the archway at Pen an Wlas or Land’s End. A bilingual sign with the Cornish coat-of-arms and the flag of St. Piran proudly displayed. Not any more!



now



New paint job and no Cornish, just as the world’s media descends on Kernow! Coincidence? Apparently not. The re-painting of the sign was only part of an ongoing refurbishment programme and had nothing to do with the torch relay event the management explained. However, an ITV reporter noted the smell of fresh paint the morning of the relay…
It’s not all bad though for Kernewek: ”Cornish is displayed prominently as well as other languages on another sign within the attraction” say the bucket & spade brigade entertainers. Great, lost with a multitude of other European languages.


And so to Andrew Ball: the last runner in Kernow. In Saltash and carrying the flag of Cornwall along with the torch on his journey to England. Unconfirmed reports suggest the flag was unceremoniously ripped from his hand by one of his Metropolitan stormtrooper escorts.



Apparently the flag was ‘political’ and therefore could not be carried past all the Union flags being fluttered and flown! Orders had come from above ie. LOCOG (London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games), who seemingly now tell the police what to do!
I wonder, will the Welsh and Scottish people be stopped from running with their flags?

As a collegue pointed out: ‘Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) of the Human Rights Act states that: “The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Convention shall be secured WITHOUT DISCRIMINATION on any ground such as sex, race, colour, LANGUAGE, religion, POLITICAL OR OTHER OPINION, ASSOCIATION WITH A NATIONAL MINORITY, property, birth or other status”. (My emphasis).
LOCOG and its partners breached this at least twice on Saturday.’

Very early on in the day the Met were already getting fired up!

I expect old Adolf would have approved…

http://anhelghyer.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/olympic-shame-but-no-surprise/

[intaglio]

1. Please get it right

Do not insult the Devon and Cornwall constabulary by saying by saying they would employ Mr Cruise or that they would say "show those Oo-arrs" a thing or two - because a fair few of that force are those same "Oo-arrs"

Next, the Lands End site is a private site and repainting decisions are the fault of that (London based) company. The rather tatty archway is not a protected structure and if they had wanted the company could have painted it sky-blue pink with purple polka-dots, At least they did keep the Black and Silver colours.

Now the Cornish Language - which version? The stuff taught round Camborne/Redruth, the type preferred in St Austell or the version from the Padstow crew? Let me give you a hint - none of them are "Authentic" because Dolly Pentreath lived in Mousehole and died in 1777. No-one since her has spoken Cornish as a native or even first tongue and for more than 150 years no-one gave a tinkers curse. Living and working here I can say (with some certainty) that the vast majority of native Cornish have not the slightest interest in this tongue and they believe that most of those learning it are Grockles or Emmets (neither of those words is Kernowek in origin, BTW).

St Piran's flag, I agree a bad decision by the Olympic Committee but it had no practical effect. Certainly the roads from Penzance through to Falmouth were lined with bunting of black and silver and black and gold. I suspect that the real problem was that the flag has been adopted by Mebyon Kernow (a political party) as their symbol. I did hear from a Stannary member that MK had once wanted to use the arms of Cornwall but that was - err, vigorously - squashed by the Stannary Parliament people; certainly there is no love lost between them.

Finally, the "Met" does not police Cornwall. They may have supplied a few officers "on loan" but so might Bristol or Birmingham

[MichaelMcGuire]

7. Quick post before I head out to enjoy the sun.

The Mr Cruise ‘Future Crimes/Not Actually a Crime’ unit reference from the author. Was because folk where getting visits and being warned not to show their indifference or not to the London 2012 in the same way many show indifference to the Cornish/nation/language and or its existence, as offensive.

Nor am I the author of the piece, I may have taken it for granted. That a link at the bottom would tell everyone such, not to mention I in't Cornish. The sign in Cornish doesn't look to be in that much of a need of a repaint and if a repaint was needed why the complete redesign. In my humble opinion the change makes it look like a cheap pub.

[KamaAina]

11. Wiki begs to differ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornish_language#18th-20th_centuries

The Reverend John Bannister stated in 1871 that "The close of the 18th century witnessed the final extinction, as spoken language, of the old Celtic vernacular of Cornwall". However, there is some evidence that Cornish continued, albeit in limited usage by a handful of speakers, through the late 19th century. Matthias Wallis of St Buryan certified in 1859 that his grandmother, Ann Wallis, who had died around 1844, had spoken Cornish well. He also stated that a Jane Barnicoate, who had died c. 1857, could speak Cornish too. J. Gwyn Griffiths commented that "there were Cornish immigrants who spoke the language in the leadmine villages of North Cardiganshire, Mid-Wales, in the 1850s". Mary Kelynack, the Madron born 84-year old who walked up to London to see the Great Exhibition in 1851 and was presented to the Queen, was believed to have been a Cornish speaker. In 1875 six speakers all in their sixties were discovered in Cornwall. John Tremethack, died 1852 at the age of eighty-seven, is believed to have known Cornish and passed some of it on to his daughter. George Badcock, grandfather of Bernard Victor of Mousehole, taught some Cornish to his grandson. The farmer John Davey, who died in 1891 at Boswednack, Zennor, may have been the last person with some traditional knowledge of Cornish. However, other traces survived. Fishermen in West Penwith were counting fish using a rhyme derived from Cornish into the 20th century.

There is good evidence that at least three native speakers outlived John Davey junior: Jacob Care of St Ives (died 1892); Elizabeth Vingoe of Higher Boswarva, Madron (died 1903 and who taught at least some Cornish to her son); and John Mann, who was interviewed in his St Just home by Richard Hall (himself Elizabeth Vingoe's nephew) in 1914, Mann being then 80. He told Hall that, when a child in Boswednack, Zennor, he and several other children always conversed in Cornish while at play together. This would have been around 1840-1850. They would certainly have known Cornish speaker Anne Berryman (1766–1854), also of Boswednack. In 1935 a retired policeman, Mr Therris, reported that when he was a youth in about 1875 he used to go to sea fishing with some Newlyn fishermen who were in the habit of speaking Cornish while on the boat and held conversations which lasted up to ten minutes at a time. The foreman supervising the launching of boats at St Ives in the 1920s would shout "Hunchi boree" which means Heave away now! possibly the last recorded sentence of traditional Cornish.

[intaglio]

12. Wiki is fine about some things but

The article states the opinion of one English priest and counters with reports of people who say others spoke Cornish. Speaking a language does not make it your first tongue, though I'll agree they may have spoken it as natives. However no-one much cared about it throughout the 19th Century. Compare the record of Cymric usage in Wales and the efforts of Iolo Morganwg (Edward Williams) with Kernowek usage which languished until about 1920 when Henry Jenner began establishing a Gorsedd Kernow (first held 1928). I tend to go with Dolly Pentreath because if the number of speakers proposed by the Wiki article existed there is very little trace of their effect.

For example, folk song collectors have recorded very few songs in Cornish, Baring-Gould has none, as far as I know, and Cecil Sharp collected one (in Somerset!) which was probably a broadside ballad dating much earlier. Neither Trelawney nor Lamorna, considered "national songs" by the locals, have any Kernowek element.

In respect of the Policeman/Fisherman I have a lot of doubts as my brother in law and his friends had a certain ... robust ... sense of humour and faking the Cornish usage in front of emmets and others played some part in that. In the same light I know that the native Ed Prynn was exposed to a deal of ribbing about his stone usage - although he did have the last laugh, his garden became a recognised tourist attraction.

If you check the Wiki article on Dolly you will see she was the last recognised speaker and certainly she is so regarded by local Government. This confusion is likely the usual problem of crowd sourcing and lack of adequate records.

BTW if using a phrase marks the continued use of a language there are many people who, de facto, speak Latin!

[Sea-Dog]

2. no surprise, and 1000 excuses. its all a misunderstanding REALLY!

[aikoaiko]

3. Who are these Corn people?

[Sea-Dog]

8. google

[aikoaiko]

9. General Discussion

[Sea-Dog]

10. for finding out 'who these people are' youve got to be shitting me

[MichaelMcGuire]

4. Quick post: More on the painting over Pen an Wlas.

Land's End Cornish translation removal criticised

[malaise]

5. Thanks for this

Nothing surprises me anymore

[MichaelMcGuire]

6. I know.

If it was me. It happened too... that torch would have been stubbed out.